Simulating a direct shear box test by DEM

Abstract

Distinct element simulation was performed for direct shear box (DSB) tests on a dense and a loose two-dimensional (2D) sample of 3259 cylinders. Special attention was devoted to the effect that the frictional force between the inside surface of the upper shear box and the sample had on the measured shear strength in the DSB test. Some ways of minimizing this interface frictional force were introduced in the paper. Given that the deformation approximates simple shear within the deforming zone across the sample centre (referred to as the shear zone), a method was proposed to evaluate the overall strains in the DSB test. The numerically simulated data were used to interpret, on a microscopic scale, the angle of internal friction and a 2D stress–dilatancy equation for the mobilized plane in granular material. It was found that the angle of internal friction in granular material is not directly related to the interparticle friction angle (ϕµ). Instead, it relates to the average interparticle contact angle ([Formula: see text]) on the mobilized plane and the ratio k/f0, representing the degree of the probability distribution of the interparticle contact forces that is biased toward the positive zone of the contact angle θ (along the shear direction), where k is the slope of the linear distribution of the average interparticle contact forces against the interparticle contact angle; and f0is the average interparticle contact force.Key words: angle of internal friction, direct shear box test, distinct element method, friction, granular material, stress–dilatancy.